Letting Go
by angelface04
Summary: He’d been gone for three hours. He should have known better than to leave them alone together for that long. OWAJ PostDH, NO SPOILERS!


**A/N:** Well, here's an Oliver/Angelina one-shot for Fanfic100 (for more information go to my profile). It's post-Deathly Hallows but has no spoilers.

And I just haven't been able to write a fic about YOU-KNOW-WHO yet…I'm just going to have to wait it out, I think. But don't worry…one of these days I will. )

Read and Review **PLEASE**.

Promt 027. Parents

**Letting Go**

When he walked in from the snow he was surprised to find his mum sliding on her coat.

"Wha - " He hadn't even got the word out of his mouth before she shook her head.

"Don't ask. I'm going to see your father." She wrapped a purple scarf around her neck and brushed past him. He groaned setting down his bags and then pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

She was going to see his dad. This could _not_ be good.

He'd been gone for three hours. **Three hours** Christmas shopping, and something had happened between the two. Of course. He should have known better than to leave them alone together for that long.

And if she was going to the graveyard, it must have been a hell of a fight.

"Angelina?" He called, shrugging off his overcoat and untying his scarf. "Ange?"

"In here." Her voice was flat and monotone, barely audible. He made his way down the short hallway, turned left, and there she was. She was flinging clothes about the room, sweaters and denims and socks.

"Wha—what are you…" And then he understood. And he sighed and whirled around, taking a moment to gather himself.

"I'm just going to go." She muttered.

"What happened?" He picked up a robe that had somehow ended up near the door and tossed it towards her on the bed.

"Nothing." She hissed.

"Tell me." Oliver implored, keeping his distance from her. When she was angry she got a little wild, and it was best to let her have her space.

"We just had a fight." She grabbed her bag and began stuffing her clothes in there. She could have used magic. It would have been much faster, but she wasn't thinking straight. "_Another _fight."

"D'you want to tell me what happened?"

"No, I really don't." She snapped, storming into the restroom and then reappearing, carrying her shampoo and conditioner.

"Don't you think you're overreacting?"

"I don't know how you lived with that woman for eighteen years." She didn't answer the question, just slammed a few novels in with her body wash.

"You're not trying." He'd witnesses their petty skirmishes before. They were immature and insufferable. Angelina was stubborn, and his mum was not a force to be reckoned with.

"Excuse me?" She paused with a bra in her hand, shoving her fist into her hip angrily. He would have laughed if he wasn't so worked up.

"She baits you and you bite!" His eyes were stormy. "You're not _trying_." He repeated. Her mouth was hanging open.

"I haven't seen you rushing to my rescue!" Her voice was shaking and he knew that if she didn't calm down soon she would explode.

"She's my _mum_, Ange!"

"Don't you _care_ about me?" And that was what he'd been waiting for. The straw that broke the camel's back.

"I'm right **here!**" He bellowed, his face turning red, his eyes wide. She was glaring at him with tears in her eyes. "Of _course_I care about you! I'm trying my absolute hardest, but you don't seem to be putting forth any effort at all!"

"I am!"  
"You're not." He shook his head. "You don't want to make this work, do you?"

"Of _course_ I do Oliver! Of _course_ I do, but she** hates** me!" She yelled back, her tears dangerously close to spilling over. "I can see the looks she gives me, like I'm **dirty**, like I'm not **good enough**. The look that says, 'Why, for fuck's sake is my boy going out with that **black** girl?!"

"No she doesn't!" Oliver persisted, although his resolve was weakening slightly. "Angelina, she doesn't see you for your skin - "

"Of course she does, Oliver. Everyone does. _You_ do. You may not realize it, but you really do." He sighed, his hand running through his hair.

"I think that you're being unfair." He muttered hoarsely.

"Well, I'm sorry love, but that's the way things work." Her tone was bitter. He shook his head.

"What do you want me to do Angelina?" She didn't answer, but turned and began shoving things into her bag again.

"You stay here with your mum." She hissed. "I'm going home."

"**No**." He fought back. "No. You're staying right here with me." She shook her head angrily.

"No. I'm _not_."

"It's _Christmas_!"

"Well, Happy Christmas, Wood." He exhaled angrily, turning around. She knew that annoyed him, when she called him by his last name. It had been the deal they'd made in his sixth year when they'd started seeing each other. On the pitch, they used last names. Quidditch was business, not personal. It had bothered her when he'd suggested it, but she'd gone along with it. Now it was biting him in the ass.

"Fine." He hissed, his cheeks turning red. "Just bloody go if you want to give up on us. Whatever."

"I never said - "

"You didn't have to!" He turned back to look at her and realized that he was much angrier than he'd thought. "Damn it, if you loved about it me, if you _really truly _loved me, then you'd try to get through this! I know that it's hard for you, but it's _really_ important to me that we're here for Christmas. I _know_ my mum is insufferable, I know that. But she lost -" His voice broke off. He didn't want to talk about his Dad. "It's her first Christmas alone. _My_ first Christmas…without Dad."

"I d-don't - " He would have felt badly for her, but he was too angry. After everything they'd been through, after all the sacrifices he'd made – turning down the Dodgers, nearly committing suicide when he'd agreed to meet her older brother, spending his entire summer vacation in London instead of traveling with his team to Venezuela for a pre-paid trip, and she couldn't do one bloody thing.

"Forget it, Johnson. Have a good holiday." He turned to walk out of the door, fuming.

"Oliver…" Something in her voice made him turn around. He was surprised to see her hands at her sides, her normally lofty chin lowered. "Please."

"Happy Christmas." And then he stalked out of the door.

He'd heard the pop that meant her disapparition nearly two hours ago. Now, he was sitting in front of the Christmas tree, a bottle of firewhiskey half-empty in his hand and his focus slowly sliding in and out.

His mum still wasn't back. He knew she was probably sitting near his father's gravestone, sobbing her heart out, or in a pub alone, drinking away her problems.

Just like he was.

He let his head hit his hands and he remembered sitting in front of his tree like this last year, a letter from Angelina clutched in his palm as he told his dad that he thought he was going to marry her…

And then the memories came flooding back and they were so painful that he couldn't help the sob that built up in his throat.

His dad hugging him when he won the Quidditch cup his last year, waking him up on his birthday when he was 14 and presenting him with his brand new Nimbus, helping him with his Potion's essay over summer break, cutting his hair in the kitchen, teaching him a stinging hex when he was being bullied by the neighbor kids, exercising with him before Puddlemere tryouts…

And then the worst memories.

Staring at unblinking eyes and shaking broad, muscular shoulders, his mum crumbling at the door, dark robes and sallow faces at the funeral, rain lashing against a dark gravestone, sleepless nights and swollen eyes…

Angelina.

She'd always been there. He'd apparated to her parent's flat minutes after he'd found out and she'd looked up at him with wide, scared eyes.

"Oliver?"

"It's…it's Dad…" And then he'd collapsed in a puddle of tears and she'd engulfed him in her arms, crying with him.

And now she was gone. She'd walked out, just like that, after everything.

He wasn't surprised when he heard another pop. He was sure that he'd smell the whiskey on his mum when she stumbled through the hallway, either laughing hysterically or bawling uncontrollably. That had been a little routine they'd fallen into after his Dad's death. After the war.

She'd leave. He'd wait up for her. She'd come home dead drunk. He'd clean her up, force a sobering potion down her throat and then put her to bed.

But he had his _own_ problems now. Namely, the fact that his fiancée had just left him.

He didn't move. That's why when the lithe body sat calmly down next to him he was surprised. He looked up, and it wasn't his mum.

"I'm sorry." She murmured. He wasn't quite sure if she was really there, or if it was the firewhiskey pumping through his veins and making him hallucinate, but he didn't care. She was here. He could touch her. Hear her. Smell her. It didn't matter if she wasn't real. Not yet.

"I miss him." He choked out suddenly, and he was slightly aware that his eyes were full. She knew just what he was talking about. "I just wish I could tell him I love him. Just…one more time." They sat in silence, staring at the Christmas tree and the enchanted fire in the fireplace. "I'm sorry about Mum. She's not ready to let go just yet."

She nodded, and he laid his head in her lap, letting her run her fingers through his sandy blonde hair. "It's okay."

"Don't ever leave me again." He ordered in an urgent whisper. "I can't do this without you." She leaned over his figure and pressed her lips onto his, awakening him to the fact that this _was_ real. She was really there and not in his imagination.

"Okay."


End file.
